


The Demons That Keep Us Up

by ZelithebaRuebens67



Category: Four Brothers (2005)
Genre: Anger, Dissociation, Gen, How Do I Tag, Kind of dark, References to Depression, Second fic and I still don't know how to tag, Self-Hatred, What even?, cursing and swearing, have trouble with others (lack of) handle on mental issues, i just want you to be safe kiddos, i wrote this at a ridiculously late hour, in a really dark state of mind, seriously please don't read if you're emotionally vulnerable, trigger warning, what is tagging, your authors a sailor kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 04:17:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16824976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZelithebaRuebens67/pseuds/ZelithebaRuebens67
Summary: What do you do when it's all too much? When the day just gets to you and bleeds into the night?Or Jack has a rough night, gets stuck in his own head, and ends up coping anyway.





	The Demons That Keep Us Up

**Author's Note:**

> This story is pretty dark. It references depression, dissociation, not so great coping skills of a mental breakdown, and just general dark themes. It's probably not as dark as I'm making it seem, but nobody knows you like you and I would rather be safe. So, I would advise you not read if you're emotionally vulnerable and sensitive and/or easily triggered.   
> Let me know if there are any errors and mistakes, and thank you for reading! Enjoy.

Jack sat curled up in the top corner of his bed, room dark and thoughts darker. Music blasting from his earbuds into his ears, making it seem like it was getting beamed directly into his skull. The beautiful, haunting melodies and lyrics only sunk him further into his thoughts, further into his own head. He realized that he was a bit too old to be doing this shit, or at least too old to let it run him over like this. But, fact of the matter was (is), depression gives no fucks and it wasn’t about to start now, and try as he might for a better way, this was the only way he knew how to cope. What more could he do? He read the books (thanks Jerry), he went to the websites and tried to ‘self-cure and heal naturally’, (which was apparently fancy talk for art, with their top feature being coloring. Coloring Angel, really?), he tried to get over it, (astounding work Bobby, Really, who would have ever guessed), and even gave Ms. Evelyn’s totally bogus happy mantra thing (seriously, he didn’t even know what the fuck to call it,) and for the most part, they all contributed to five mostly happy, minimally depressive months.

But here he was, all alone, drowning in the dark listening to songs he knows fucks him up, thinking shit he knows is irrational (he prayed to God it was just irrational thoughts), being ridiculous.

Shit, did he think ridiculous? Pathetic was more accurate. Pathetic because he knew it was all in his head and here he was, crying over it. Pathetic because he let the shadows intimidate him. Pathetic because, fuck all else, a hug would fix all of this in a heartbeat. Imagine that. All your hurt, all your sorrow, all your loneliness, desperation, fear, hopelessness, everything keeping you up at night, solved by simple human contact. (Normally, he’d have less of a problem expressing this with Evelyn, but she was needed out of town that week, and even he wasn’t pathetic enough to keep her from that.)

He choked out a sob, both at his feeling of inadequacy and at how hard the lyrics were hitting him right now. He curled into himself as tight as he could and let the tears run silently down his face. He knew all he had to do was call. Bobby, Jerry, Angel, any of his bandmates would take his mind off things. He could even call the suicide hotline. Ask for Sheridan. All of this was logical, easily accessible, but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t convince his body or his mind that he was worth it.

So, he sat there and cried. Silently, letting all these wonderfully horrible songs pound their words into him. Sometimes it hurt too much, so much he felt the need to actively expressed that pain, yelling, sobbing, punching his bed post. Sometimes the words were powerful, making him feel things. Hopeless to enraged, anguish to fierce determination. This weird, fucked up cycle of overwhelming emotions, cat tailing each other like an ouroboros, stirring something within him and drawing it out, like some dangerously vengeful poison, making him hate and hurt simultaneously, making him want to cry and scream, and rage, anything but sit here and cry and feel like this. This cycle continued for an absurd amount if time, he wasn’t even sure how long. All the while it ate at him, drawing him in on himself, taking him further and further from reality, leading to the darkest former of his mind, in a place where he hurt, became too tired and afraid to keep fighting.

There was a point in the night that he climbed so far back that the hurting stopped. Replaced by numbness and a fuzzy dissociative fugue, like cotton stuffing his mind and ears. In a way it was nice. Like. He could spend the rest of the night sitting there staring at the wall.

And he did. He did, and he hated himself for it, but what could he do. His attention shifted between his dim lit wall and the stars outside. Eventually his brain favored the bright white dots as he found himself opening his window and gazing at the stars. He sat in silent wonder. Watching as the stars slowly shifted across the sky and eventually started to fade out. As the night pressed on towards the morning, he watched the sky change colors, stars giving way to lazy, hazy clouds, watched the last quarter moon slip down the horizon. And it was as he watched the sun start peaking out over the abandoned catholic church did jack start to feel the exhaustion start to settle. He made his way back to his bed, still unfeeling and numb. But as he pulled down his covers and cocooned himself up, he couldn’t help but be proud of himself. Proud he survived the night. Not necessarily proud of how the entire ordeal was handled, but proud he had lived to literally see a new day.

It was enough to lull him into an easy dreamless sleep, at least.


End file.
